In a Long Term Evolution (Long Term Evolution, LTE) access network, according to the definition of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (The 3rd Generation Partnership Project, 3GPP) protocol, there are two wireless states of a user in LTE: one is a connected state, and in this case, a wireless connection exists between user equipment and a mobile network, extra signaling interaction between an external data network and the user equipment is not needed, and an uplink or downlink packet can be sent; the other is an idle state, and in this case, no wireless connection exists between the user equipment and the mobile network, when needing to interact with the external data network, the user equipment needs to first establish a wireless connection by using a service request (Service Request) process, and after a bearer is restored, the user equipment can perform a data service; when an external data network needs to communicate with the user equipment, after a packet sent by the external data network to user equipment in an idle state reaches a serving gateway (Serving Gateway, SGW), the SWG may trigger, by using a downlink data notification (Downlink Data Notification) message, a mobility management entity (Mobility Management Entity, MME) to page the user equipment. Because a network defined by the 3GPP protocol does not learn information about a neighbor relationship between network nodes, the MME pages users in all eNodeB base stations in a tracking area list (Tracking Area List, TA LIST) area in which the user equipment is located last time, where the TA LIST includes one or more tracking areas (Tracking Area, TA) that correspond to dozens or hundreds of eNodeBs.
Because each paging involves hundreds of eNodeBs, frequent paging may bring great pressure to processing of the eNodeBs. In an MME defined by the 3GPP standard, the MME learns information about an eNodeB on which a user camps last time, information about a TA on which the user camps last time, and information about a TA List on which the user camps last time. Therefore, the MME may also page a user in the eNodeB on which the user camps last time or in the TA on which the user camps last time, to reduce a quantity of eNodeBs involved in the paging. Data of universal mobile telecommunications systems (Universal Mobile Telecommunications System, UMTS) of Hong Kong and Canada shows that a paging success rate in a cell on which user equipment camps last time is about 65%, and a paging success rate in a cell on which a user camps last time and a neighboring cell of the cell is about 90%. Cell coverage areas of eNodeBs of the UMTS and LTE are similar. In an LTE network, the MME pages a user only in a range of an eNodeB on which the user camps last time, and a success rate may only be 65% to 70%. However, when paging is performed in a TA range (30 to 50 eNodeBs), a quantity of eNodeBs involved in the paging is still large. In view of data of the UMTS, the MME pages a user in a small range, namely, the eNodeB on which the user camps last time and a neighboring eNodeB of the eNodeB, and a success rate being more than 90% may be obtained, which is a good trade-off between a paging range and a paging success rate.
However, in the prior art, a method for obtaining a neighbor relationship between eNodeBs by an MME is not provided, causing that the MME cannot better improve paging efficiency.